Monster Mash

When I was little, the “Boogie Man” was represented by the cartoon devil from the Underwood Deviled Ham package. Don’t ask me how that happened. I had nightmares of him hovering over our house in a helicopter, lowering himself down by a rope to pluck me out of bed and take me away forever. The shapeless “monster” of finding myself separated from loved ones turned into an actual dancing devil monster. I’ve only had one child given to night terrors, but that was enough. She would enter that shady twilight between waking and sleeping and begin screaming about “mah-sters.” My son potty-trained himself at eighteen months, but went right back to diapers when his sister told him that the faint clinking sound in Nana’s bathroom vent was monsters. Even though most of my childhood fears have morphed into adult-sized monsters, I still can’t stand right next to a bed while getting in and it’s not just for the kids that a nightlight gets left on. Because we all have scary stuff to deal with, popular culture often works at helping us face our fears--or at least desensitizing us to them. Case in point: the runaway success of slasher films. For the preschool set, Sesame Street has fully reclaimed monsters, turning them harmless and endearing. And Tedd Arnold hijacked the familiar song about monkeys and jumping and beds for Five Ugly Monsters. The illustrations are great but the best part is getting to open up a can on the naughty monsters.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tedd_Arnold

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Ugly-Monsters-Tedd-Arnold/dp/0590222260